Dryden library seeks funding from community

Southworth Library in the village of Dryden is requesting financial help from the community for the first time since it opened its doors in 1883.

The library’s Board of Trustees, led by Michael Lane, acting board president, is requesting $50,000 from community residents as an annual provision.

Based on information that Lane and the board have received from the Tompkins County Assessment Department, this would translate to $0.0564 per $1,000 on a median assessment value of $165,000 per household. This means that, according to Lane, the average household would contribute $10 or less annually through this provision.

According to a flier provided by the library, the additional funds would let the library be open 10 more hours a week, provide competitive wages for staff, continue to provide programs and events for all ages, add new materials, stay current with technology and have stabilized funding to cover budget shortfalls.

The annual fund request will be up for a vote May 17 at the Dryden High School auditorium from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The proposition will be on the same ballot as the vote for Dryden Central School District’s proposed 2022-23 budget.

“It’s come to the point where the library board felt that rather than cut back on what we provide to the community for services, we were going to ask to go on the ballot,” said Lane, who noted the library board received enough signatures on its petition to submit as a permissive referendum.

According to a release, the library has seen a 300% increase in material use, a 200% increase in visitors to the library and a 500% increase in use of technology resources in the last 10 years.

Lane noted Southworth Library is the second-heaviest-used library in Tompkins County, behind Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca, and has the most material usage out of the five rural libraries in the county. Most of the libraries in the Finger Lakes Library System collect funds from their communities annually, he added.

“The funding will enable the library to keep its staff intact and keep doing the program that we’re doing right now,” said Diane Pamel, the library’s director since 2007.

The library’s 2022 budget was set at $220,000, Pamel said, with half of it for staff costs. However, since the library is short staffed, it’s led to Pamel covering some of the hours. Pamel is the only full-time employee among five part-timers at the library.

Breaking down the library’s annual fund collection, 35% of funds come from municipalities in the Dryden Municipal District, 10% from individual donations from patrons and benefactors and 55% from investment earnings.

“[The 55%] is basically seed corn [funding],” Lane said, which has been the library’s source of income “for years.”

Lane mentioned the library has fallen short on the 55% portion of the funding for the past few years. The proposition, however, wouldn’t replace the investment funding the library has received and will continue to receive, he added.

“[It would go] right into our operation budget,” Lane continued.

Lane noted that if the library hadn’t received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan toward the beginning of the pandemic, the library “would’ve been further behind [in funds] than we are right now.” Pamel mentioned that the library received $24,000 from the PPP loan.

“It’d mean cutting a lot more [out of the budget] than we wanted to,” he said. “We’ve had a deficit the past few years, but didn’t last due to the [PPP] loan. The federal money helped us get over that hump.”

The library offers a plethora of programs, including weekly story time for preschoolers, book clubs for school-age kids, a handful of adult book clubs and more, Pamel said. While a majority of those programs are grant-funded, Pamel said the library still needs staff for them.

The proposition that’s up for a vote also addresses the library’s hours. Currently, the library’s hours of operation are 2 to 7 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.

Pamel noted if the community votes yes on the proposition, the hours would be restored to a normal level of operation. If the community votes no, the library would do “all it could to keep the hours as they are right now,” she added.

“We haven’t said if this happens, that happens,” Lane said. “If the vote fails, we’ll have to look at alternatives. Some of those alternatives are less services.”

So far, the library has garnered an “overwhelming amount of support” for the proposition, including from the school district, municipalities and the community as a whole, Pamel said.

“A lot of people have wondered why the library hasn’t done this before,” Pamel said, adding people have also been curious about how the library has sustained itself “this long without the funding.”

“We’ve had a friendly and youthful response from those entities,” Lane added.

Lane stated that the library is “like our community center” in Dryden.

“It’s a community society where parents feel safe with their kids and learn and senior citizens have spirited discussions about books,” he added. “Our community throughout the district supports our library. The services it provides are very popular. People like what the library does for the community.”

Lane is hopeful “everybody in the community” votes on the proposition.

“The value of the library goes beyond just the people that go to our programs or check out a book,” Pamel said. “It’s creating a whole environment of information and open communication that I’d hate to see us lose.”

Dryden Dispatch appears every Wednesday in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@VizellaMedia.com.